Thereโsย a lot of scienceย underneath theย Oppenheimerย story, which makes it treacherous for a movie director. After all, J. Robert Oppenheimer was a physicist. You canโt understand him without understanding his science. Nor can you fully grasp his roleย in the Manhattan project, the most important scientific and engineering project of modern times. In some ways, the filmโs writer and director Christopher Nolan goes to extremes to be true to scientific fact, even when itโs potentially damaging to the narrative.
In one small but telling example, thereโs the awkward fact that sound and light donโt travel at the same speedโawkward because the base camp, where Oppenheimer observed the detonation of the first atomic bomb, was aboutย 10 miles from ground zero. That means a delay of roughly a minuteโa full minute of awed silence before the blast in the movieโs soundtrack can catch up with the mushroom of fire obscenely unfolding itself on the screen. Aย lesser director would be terrified of that gap (if they were even aware of it), imagining the audience members squirming in their seats, waiting for the boom. Nolan not only is unafraid of showing the delay but (by my rough count in the movie theater) extends it by a good bit for dramatic emphasis.
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